Kilivila Color Terms

Senft, Gunter

doi:10.1075/sl.11.2.03sen

Article published In: Studies in Language
Vol. 11:2 (1987) ► pp.313–346

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Kilivila Color Terms

Gunter Senft | Max-Planck-Institut, Seewiesen, FRG

Published online: 1 January 1987

https://doi.org/10.1075/sl.11.2.03sen

This paper documents the results of a study of color terms produced by Trobriand Islanders. Eleven color stimuli were presented to 60 informants in five different age-groups ranging from approximately 4 to 75 years. These informants, native speakers of Kilivila, live in Tauwema village on Kaileuna Island, one of the Trobriand Islands in Papua New Guinea. The paper first describes the method and the aims of the study. It then discusses the strategies of language production used by the informants, presents the inventory of the lexical set of color terms in Kilivila, and describes the semantic scope of these terms. Finally it discusses aspects of language change in progress that affect this lexical set of color terms in a rather dramatic way.

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